“Remember this, ‘Let’s do it all on C-SPAN? … Clear your calendar,” Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told POLITICO, adding that he has spoken to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and personally with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) about his intentions.

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The type of “old-fashioned” conference Frank is talking about is a real rarity in today’s Congress. House and Senate negotiators would debate the points of disagreement between the two chambers, voting point-by-point in open session – an open session that Frank would like broadcast on C-SPAN for all the world to see.

The move is a clear signal that Massachusetts Democrat will not let Senate Republicans water down key elements of the legislation without a public brawl. There would still be plenty of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and deal-cutting for votes, but Frank’s plan would force Senate lawmakers to go on the record as choosing weaker proposals on the consumer protection piece and others.

Frank has expressed extreme displeasure with a Senate deal, developing at the committee level, to create a consumer protection division within the Federal Reserve, rather than the stand-alone Consumer Financial Protection Agency in the House-passed bill.

Frank clearly thinks the politics of the financial reform debate are on his side.

“Maybe Senate Republicans want to sit there on C-SPAN in a full public conference and take that position; I don’t think so,” Frank said of the consumer protection issue.

“We’re going to thrash this out in conference," he vowed. "And I think, frankly, these issues fully debated in public may have a somewhat different outcome.”

These days, if there is a formal conference convened at all, only the opening and closing gavels are open to the public while all the real work goes on behind closed doors – as happened with the stimulus bill. And a vast majority of bills negotiated between the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee in recent years have not gone to conference at all. In several cases, Frank has had to accept Senate deals he hasn’t liked because it was the best Dodd could get through the Senate.

“Too many people are assuming ‘Oh, well, this will be the Senate bill and the House will take it,’” Frank said of the financial reform bill, acknowledging that in the past he’s had to take what the Senate has offered. “Look, I want this done but … we can take another week, 10 days for conference. That’s not a serious problem.”

Frank argued that the financial reform bill would be much easier to deal with in a public conference than health care reform. For one, there is only one primary committee involved in each chamber, whereas health care had three on each side, Frank said. The House and Senate bills will also be largely similar, with a limited – but very crucial – number of sticking points, he said.